The Land Agent

by J David Simons

  ‘I don’t see too good.’

  ‘It’s Lev. Szmul’s son. Will you let me in?’

  ‘He’s asleep.’

  ‘I’ll wait.’

  Zelda scratched her scalp through hair as sparse as winter weeds. ‘I don’t know when he wakes.’

  ‘Zelda. It’s freezing out here.’

  ‘All right, all right. Come in.’

  The room was dim, warm and smoky, with the stink of rotten vegetables, drying wool. The roof leaked in a couple of places into rusted tins on the floor. One wall was shelved to the ceiling with books. Two stools. A table carved from a log. There was a kitchen area with a sink, a few pots and peelings, pelts strewn everywhere. He had heard it was Zelda who had skinned them, laying traps for the wolves, slitting their throats when caught. The townsfolk said she’d even killed a bear, slipped underneath its paws while it stood on its hindlegs, ripped open its stomach, then sliced off its testicles. A delicacy where she came from. Although where that was, nobody knew. She had been his grandfather’s housekeeper for as long as he could remember. He had never known his grandmother, who had died giving birth to his youngest uncle. There was only one bed in this cottage, so Lev had to make up his own mind where Zelda slept. The same friends, uncles, aunts and cousins who called Ewa Kaminsky a whore used to say the same about Zelda. But not to his grandfather’s face.

  ‘Who is dead?’ she asked.

  ‘No-one is dead. I just want to talk to him.’

  ‘He sleeps.’

  ‘When will he wake?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘I can wait. I brought him some tobacco from the store.’

  She snatched the package from him, sniffed it hard along an edge, then waddled over to the kitchen area, searched out a bowl. From a pot by the hearth, she ladled out some liquid, handed it to him.

  ‘It could be a long time. Sit.’ She pointed to a stool by the fireside. He did as he was told. Zelda went over to a pile of skins, laid down and closed her eyes. He watched her as he drank the soup – beans, herbs, bits of bark. More like a potion than a broth. He listened to Zelda’s snoring, the spit of the fire, the droplets of water falling into the tins, until he slipped off his stool onto one of the pelts, into his own deep sleep.

  The rough shaking woke him. And the rancid hiss by his ear. ‘Son of Szmul. Come, come. He is ready.’

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘What do I know about time? He is awake.’

  Lev pushed himself to his feet. His forehead ached. ‘Water.’

  Zelda nodded to a barrel in the corner. He dipped in a tin cup and drank. It tasted of the forest. A window above his head showed a half-moon high in the sky. He had slept for hours.

  ‘Come, come,’ Zelda beckoned. She opened the door to the only other room.

  His grandfather was sat up in his bed, wrapped in a prayer shawl, a tattered, black silk yarmulke on his head. His beard hung grey and dirty like a hank of raw wool. It had been a while since Lev had last seen him, but he looked the same. Perhaps the old were always just old in the eyes of the young.

  ‘Which son of Szmul are you? Is that you, Amshel?’

  Lev looked for a stool. But there was none. Instead, he had to crouch in a half-kneel before the bed. ‘There is only one son now, zeide. You know that. I am Lev. The youngest.’

  ‘Come closer.’

  Lev did as he was told.

  ‘Let me feel you.’

  His grandfather’s fingers lightly tapped the skin of his face. The touch was dry like parchment.

  ‘Ah yes, now I remember. You are the good son.’

  ‘The good son?’

  ‘Amshel, he was selfish. The other two, what were their names?’

  ‘Hershel and Baruch.’

  ‘Yes, Hershel and Baruch. They only had time for each other. But you, you also look out for others. The name shapes the man, Lev. Your name in Hebrew, it means “heart”. But in Yiddish, Lev also means “lion”. Do you have the heart of a lion, Lev?’

  ‘I don’t think so, zeide.’

  ‘You are still young. You have time to find one. Why are you here?’

  ‘My father… Szmul… your son… he is leaving the town.’

  ‘To Warsaw?’

  ‘To America.’

  His grandfather sighed, a whispery, papery breath. ‘Ah, America.’ Then the anger rose, as Lev knew it would. ‘With that kurve he now calls a wife? Not your mother, mind you. Your mother was a good woman. An angel. Not a whore like this one. With her lipstick and fancy ways. When did he decide this?’

  ‘A few months ago. He is leaving after winter.’

  ‘He sent you to tell me this? After a few months.’

  Lev waited for his grandfather to calm. ‘He didn’t send me.’

  ‘He is leaving without telling me? It is that kurve. How she drives a wedge between father and son. So if not to tell me, why have you come?’

  ‘I came to ask your advice.’

  ‘You are going with him?’

  ‘That is what I want to ask. The Zionists want me to go to Palestine. A small group of pioneers. Ten of us.’

  ‘Ah, the Zionists. They think now the British are in control, their dream will come true.’

  ‘They will arrange the papers. Provide some funds. We are going to start a commune. Build an agriculture settlement in a Jewish homeland.’

  ‘They will want you to build roads for Jewish capitalists. When you could walk on streets made of gold?’

  ‘What do you say, zeide? I should go to America?’

  His grandfather started coughing. An awful sound. Zelda was quickly by his side with a cup of water. He sipped from it then waved her away. ‘Listen, Lev. To go to America is simple. It is a fresh start. You make no sacrifices. You go, you get work, you make money, you buy a house, you get married, you have children, you die. To go to Palestine. It is not a fresh beginning. It is like grafting new branches onto old vines. It is complicated. The people. The history. The land.’

  ‘I still don’t understand. Where shall I go?’

  ‘It is not for me to tell you. You must make up your own mind. Or listen to your heart. But I think it is best you go somewhere. For here they hate us.’

  He left his grandfather coughing into the fringes of his prayer shawl. Zelda caught up with him just outside the door.

  ‘He will be dead before winter is out,’ she whispered.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I saw it before. This wasting disease of the lungs. One month. Two at the most.’

  He rubbed his eyes. So much death in his family. ‘I should go back in to see him.’

  ‘No, no. It is just good you came. That is enough. He is very fond of you.’ She grabbed his arm. ‘What will you do?

  ‘I am following my heart. I will go to Palestine.’

  Zelda fished something out of her apron pocket. ‘Can you take this?’

  A rag. Something wrapped inside. A tiny stone? A jewel? ‘What is it?’

  She looked at him coyly. ‘My tooth.’

  ‘A tooth?’

  ‘From when I was a child. I want you to bury it in the Holy Land.’

  Three

  LEV WAS THE YOUNGEST of the group. The others treated him like a little brother, their mascot or ignored him completely. They called themselves the Ten Tribes. Esera Shebatim. Sarah’s idea. The ten lost tribes now found. Six young men and four young women. They might have been found but Lev still felt lost.

  The Land of Israel-Palestine Office helped with financial support and the arrangements: the immigration papers and visas from the British, the permission from the police, the train ticket from Warsaw to Trieste, the border permits, the boat ticket to Alexandria and on to Jaffa. Ewa helped him pack his trunk. A suit, work clothes, short underwear, a pillow, dried bread, smoked fish, the handkerchief he never burned. His father gave him several pouches of tobacco: ‘For bribes.’ A bottle of schnapps: ‘It gets cold on the train.’ A bundle of Polish marks, mixed in with some Russian roubles and
Italian lira: ‘The lira are from Ewa. You will need to rent a room while you wait for the boat.’ His father might have been a sad man, but he was practical too.

  They came with him to Warsaw station. All the parents and families and friends did. It was quite a crowd, waving flags and singing Hatikva. Ewa kissed both his cheeks and he remembered her smell of lavender. His father shook his hand. Lev followed Sarah onto the train. Along with the other Nine Tribes, he leaned out of the window as the train pulled away. Ewa was waving and blowing kisses. His father looked as if he was holding one end of a large wardrobe. Lev never expected to see either of them again.

  The Ten Tribes squashed into a compartment for six. Lev sat on the floor. He would have liked to sit by the window. He’d never been on such a large train before. Never been beyond Warsaw. Now he would travel through the land of his birth without seeing anything of the south. The Tatra Mountains, Lake Solina, the salt mines of Wieliczka. And then he thought – what did it matter? He didn’t owe this country a backward glance. In a reflection of his thoughts, a voice shouted out:

  ‘We need new names now.’ It was Koppel. The oldest. The son of the ritual slaughterer. He handed out pieces of pickled brisket as he spoke. ‘Hebrew names. Not the downtrodden Yiddish of the Polish diaspora. The names of kings and prophets and heroes. From now on, I shall be known as Ariel. The Lion of God.’ He roared and everyone laughed.

  ‘And I shall be Shaul,’ said Shimmel. ‘Shaul Hagadol. Shaul the Great.’

  ‘The great what?’ asked Yankel, now to be known as Noam.

  ‘The great boaster,’ replied Boaz, the former Zalman.

  ‘I am Doron,’ said Hirschel.

  ‘Ahuva,’ said Sheina.

  ‘Dalia,’ said Libke.

  ‘Ayala,’ said Rivke.

  ‘I am not changing mine,’ said Sarah.

  ‘What makes you so special?’ Rivke asked.

  ‘Sarah is not a name for the downtrodden,’ said Sarah somewhat smugly. ‘She was Abraham’s wife. She was the matriarch.’

  ‘What about you, Lev?’ Ariel asked.

  ‘Lev already is a Hebrew name,’ he answered. ‘Lev means “heart”.’

  ‘But Lev Gottleib? You cannot be the heart of Gottleib. Heart of what?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Heart of a goat,’ Shaul the Great suggested.

  ‘Heart of a pig,’ said Noam, more cruelly.

  ‘Heart of a sheep,’ said Boaz. ‘Always following us around. Why are you here anyway? You only ever sat around whittling away at pieces of wood at the Young Guard. Where is your commitment? Your ideals? Your passion for the land?’

  Lev felt he needed to whittle away at a piece of wood right now. Then he would take it and stab it into Boaz’s eye. But Doron, once known as Hirschel, intervened. ‘Don’t be so self-righteous, Boaz,’ he said. ‘We’re not just travelling towards a new future. Some of us are running away from the past as well.’

  An impressed hush fell on these words of wisdom. Lev thought Doron should be a rabbi in their new land, not some fruit-picker or swamp-drainer. Ahuva was the first to speak, a young woman whose beautiful voice was unfortunately not matched by the features of her face. ‘What are you running from, Doron?’ she asked.

  ‘From the anti-Semites.’

  ‘From a violent father,’ added Shaul.

  ‘From oppression,’ said Ariel.

  ‘From an arranged marriage,’ said Dalia.

  ‘From poverty,’ said Boaz.

  ‘From abandonment,’ said Lev.

  The train stopped just before the border with Czechoslovakia. It was the darkest point of the night, but a full moon lit up the station. Two soldiers with rifles across their backs, white eagles painted on their helmets ordered them to get out, to take all their luggage with them. The platform was covered with patches of ice. A brazier burned near the station master’s office. A sign said: Zebrzydowice. From a carriage further up the platform, several religious Jews wearing long, black coats and fur hats descended, began to pray inside a halo of moonlit engine steam.

  Along with the other Nine Tribes, Lev was asked for his papers and the tag that matched up to his trunk. The soldiers wandered in and out of the group, pressing against the girls, kicking the cases, running their hands along jacket linings in search of coins, pushing their faces up too close when they spoke. One of them took off his helmet, scratched a shorn head covered in scabs.

  ‘The train for Vienna leaves in four minutes,’ the soldier said, replacing his helmet.

  Lev nodded along with everyone else.

  ‘It is a cold night in Zebrzydowice,’ the other soldier noted. He had a piggish face made all the more squashed by the tight helmet strap. ‘A very cold night in Zebrzydowice.’

  ‘All our papers are in order,’ Ariel insisted, although the leonine roar had gone from his voice.

  ‘Perhaps,’ the one with the scabs said. The religious Jews further up the platform bowed back and forth to the rhythm of their mumbled prayers. ‘Or perhaps not. The train leaves in three minutes.’ A spurt of steam escaping from behind the wheels appeared to confirm this fact. The soldier looked behind him, shouted at the praying Jews: ‘Shut up! Or I will shoot.’ Silence. ‘Two minutes.’

  Lev stood quietly with the rest of them, wondering if a blow would be struck. Or if one of the girls would be taken behind the station master’s office. Or if a shot would be fired. In the midst of all his anxiety, he found that he had stepped forward. And in a voice sounding remarkably like his own, calm despite the tremors spreading out from his stomach, he said: ‘It is a cold night in Zebrzydowice.’ The others stared at him. Lev produced his father’s bottle of schnapps from his inside coat pocket. ‘This might keep you warm.’

  The soldier with the scabs snatched at the bottle, inspected the label. ‘What about my friend?’

  ‘For your friend, I have this.’ Lev handed over two tobacco pouches.

  The soldiers passed it between themselves, sniffed the contents. ‘And for my sick mother in Katowice?’

  ‘I have these.’ He gave them the roubles.

  A whistle sounded.

  ‘Get on,’ the pig-faced one ordered. ‘Quick, quick.’

  Lev didn’t think he was a hero. It had to be some other Lev who had stepped forward, bribed the guards. Where had that courage come from? Was it really courage? Perhaps it was just recklessness? An overwhelming desire to impress? A talent for negotiation? Or perhaps he really did have the heart of a lion?

  Back on the train, they had lost their compartment to a group of Czech farmers with a stack of shotguns, a giant food hamper and an Alsatian dog. They now had to stand all the way to Vienna in a freezing corridor. But Lev didn’t care. He was in Czechoslovakia now. He had the back-slapping and cheek-kissing to keep him warm.

  ‘You did well, Lev.’ Boaz pushed in beside him. ‘And you saved me handing over this.’ He brought out his own bottle of schnapps. ‘A toast. To a cold night in Zebrzydowice.’ Boaz took a sip, handed it over.

  Lev drank deeply. The sweet, burning taste hitting the back of his throat, the liquid warming his stomach. ‘Aaachh,’ he said, imitating that voice of manly satisfaction he had heard so often outside Mr Borkowski’s liquor and tobacco store. ‘Yes, a cold night in Zebrzydowice,’ he gasped.

  ‘A cold night in Zebrzydowice,’ mimicked Noam.

  ‘A cold night in Zebrzydowice,’ shouted Shaul the Great.

  And that was the battle cry of the night as the schnapps was passed around and they ate the last of the brisket and they sang the songs of the Young Guard. Sarah squeezed along to stand next to him. ‘It’s not easy being the youngest,’ she said.

  The train jolted their bodies together. His head was dizzy from the brandy. It was no longer a cold night in Zebrzydowice.

  By the time they reached Vienna, Lev felt he was part of the kvutza, one of the Ten Tribes. After all, he had stood with them for hours on the train, slept against them, shared food, tobacco and schnapps with them, m
ade communal plans and eternal promises, kept guard while they urinated between carriages. In Vienna, they were met by Noam’s uncle, a fat little banker with a wet moustache who took them to a coffee house. Lev had never sat on velvet before, drunk coffee from a glass, eaten rich pastries made from ingredients he never knew existed. What was that flavour? Vanilla. And that? Apricot marmalade. Noam’s uncle declared them all mad. ‘What is this craziness about communal settlements? You won’t last a month, a year at most.’ He stretched his arms behind two of the girls so that the buttons of his waistcoat strained to bursting point. ‘Now, do you know what I would do with my time and money in Palestine? Invest in cement. They are talking about building a port in Haifa. What will they need? Cement. A power station in the Galilee. What will they need? Cement. So, nephew, if you hear about any opportunities involving cement, telegram me. With just one word. Cement. And I will come running.’ It was hard for Lev to see Noam’s uncle running anywhere. But he was a generous man. He took them to a market, bought them bread, cheeses, tins of Portuguese sardines and cured meats for those who didn’t keep kosher. He took them back to the train station, paid off a guard so they would have a compartment all the way to Trieste, waved them off with one last word. Cement.

  In Trieste, they rented two rooms in a boarding house near the port. No-one wanted to go out for fear of being attacked or robbed. They played cards into the night. Ariel woke them early the next morning. They walked ten abreast, arm-in-arm, to the harbour in an early morning fog. Lev had never seen a ship before. It was called Dalmatia. It left three hours later.

  Tragedy struck at sea. Not as in the sinking of the Titanic or the Lusitania. But a personal tragedy. Lev didn’t see it coming. After all, up until then, it had been the ten of them all together. The Ten Found Tribes. A kvutza. Bound together by shared dreams and common urination.